I wave to the camera, saying a cheerful, “See ya!” before turning everything off. I put the controller away, fix the blanket on the sofa the way Charlotte would, and log on to my computer. I send a tweet to thank everyone for joining me on Twitch, adding a link to my Patreon, and check through some notifications before remembering I haven’t actually uploaded tomorrow’s video yet.
Shit, I got so distracted by all the proposal stuff I forgot to finish editing it and upload it.
I’m up for another hour finishing the edits. It’s not up to my usual standard, I know, but it’s close enough, and I’ll take that right now.
While it’s exporting, I work on a thumbnail, and by the time I’ve opened YouTube to create a new video, I’m barely able to keep my eyes open. The few beers I’ve had this evening have made me sleepy, and I drag the video to upload, on autopilot as I add the thumbnail I’ve just made and tap out a quick description, update some of my default tags.
4% done, 1 hour 13 minutes left . . .
Screw it, I think, pushing away from the desk. I’ll leave it to upload overnight.
Right now, I need to go to bed.
I fall asleep dreaming of engagement rings.
Saturday
apartment #14 – imogen
Chapter Thirty
Do you think my life is chaotic?
LOL
obvs
what kind of question even is that?
Nvm
it’s a mess
but like
one I love very much, ofc
But like
Okay
Not my life, but do you think *I* am chaotic? Like, ME?
PERSONALLY?
oh, one hundred and eight percent
Lucy follows this up with a picture from a couple of weeks ago. It’s one I sent our group chat, of a TV aerial on the house next door, with my bra hanging off it, after I’d left it on the bathroom windowsill and it blew outside. #BraGate had made us all giggle for days.
I can’t even manage a faint smile reminiscing over it now.
Lucy follows up quickly, asking if I’m okay. It feels like too much to explain (especially since I’m still refusing to tell her that I’m quarantining with Honeypot Guy) and I’m not even sure how to answer that, so I tell her of course I’m okay and ask how she’s coping, locked down with her future sister-in-law. I ask if everything’s been resolved with the big argument they all had, after Kim apparently lost her shit and outed the maid of honor. She responds, but after a while I ignore the texts, the glow of my phone shining up at the ceiling as I lie on my back in Nate’s bed, completely unable to sleep.
I feel like such an asshole right now, for taking up this lovely, comfy double bed, wide awake and likely not going to sleep for a few more hours yet, while poor Nate is stuck out there on the sofa for the sixth night in a row.
I reply to Lucy’s texts for a while longer before she tells me she’s going to sleep and we’ll talk tomorrow. I scroll through Twitter for a couple of minutes before everyone there seems to have gone to bed too.
It’s gone one in the morning when I give up trying to sleep, cocoon myself in the duvet, and shuffle out to the living room. The duvet drags behind me, the fabric whispering over the laminate flooring; it seems so loud in the silence of the apartment.
It’s not just the apartment that’s so quiet, though; it’s everything.
There’s no sound of cars on the roads outside, no sirens, no shouting.
I know this is a nicer neighborhood than where I live, but even so . . .
It’s disconcerting, like someone stuck the whole world on pause.
Nate’s sprawled on the sofa, blankets half kicked off. He isn’t exactly what I’d call a tall guy, particularly, but somehow he’s managed to take up the entire three-seater sofa and has his feet hanging off the end of it. He’s wearing pajamas but the T-shirt has ridden up, exposing his soft stomach. His arms are thrown out, one to the side and one above his head, and his mouth is hanging wide open.
It’s the least composed I’ve seen him all week.
I shake him awake.
“Nate. Nate. Nate-Nathan-Nate. Honeypot. Wake up.”
For a cute guy, he wakes up in the most unattractive way. He smacks his lips together, head rolling and eyes blinking, letting out a quiet little fart, and mumbling, “Whassamatter?” before he seems to remember some random girl is living in his apartment for the week, and now she’s waking him up in the middle of the night. He sits up, rubbing his eyes and asking instead, “Immy? What’s up?”
“You drool in your sleep, you know.”
Automatically, his hand comes up to the line of dribble on his chin, and he scrubs it away. I wriggle my way into the gap he’s made between himself and the arm of the sofa; the duvet’s bigger than I thought, though, and he has to shuffle out of my way.
“You woke me up to tell me I drool in my sleep?”
“Yes.”
He lets out a short, disbelieving laugh, before frowning curiously at me and saying, “Did you call me Honeypot?”
“Yes. And it suits you, so shut up.”
“Okay.”
“Do you really think I’m chaotic?”
His frown deepens, the amusement disappearing from his face now. “Oh. Still hung up on that, huh?”
“Just a little.”
“What time is it?”
“One forty-three.”
He sighs. God, how many times have I heard that sigh this week?
So many that I know this isn’t his annoyed sigh, or even the mildly irritated one, but an uncomfortable one.
“Okay, yeah. Fine. I think you’re a chaotic kind of person. Not bad, not good, just straight-up chaotic. What I’m trying to say, is . . .
You seem to have a lot going on. Which, you know, I didn’t really mind when we matched on the app, because I was just looking for something casual, like I said. It just seemed like every day, there was a new batshit crazy thing you were stuck in the middle of. And I’m not being funny, but you did pretty much invite yourself over to my apartment in the middle of a global pandemic when you didn’t even remember my name.”
“When you put it like that . . . ” I chew on my lower lip for a minute, then ask him, “Didn’t you think they were funny, though?”
“Think what was funny?”
“My stories. Whatever batshit crazy thing I had going that day.”
Nate shrugs one shoulder. It knocks against me. “Sure. I mean, yeah, you told a funny story, but mostly I just read the messages thinking, how the fuck does this much stuff happen to someone? I mean, you had an email threatening you and your housemates with bailiffs, then the next day you went to three different shops because you realized you had no toilet paper and you came back with a crate of wine instead. There was the neighborhood cat you left food out for, and then it got into the house and you couldn’t get it to leave again . . . It just seemed like a lot of really wild stuff going on. I don’t think I’d have believed it was all happening in real time if you hadn’t sent pictures.”
I blink at him. “You say that like that sort of thing’s not normal.”
“Do all your other friends do stuff like that?”
“Well, not . . . Like, not exactly, I guess. And for the record, I did buy toilet paper. Not just the wine.”